This forum is for the discussion of anything to do with Prostate Cancer. There are only four rules:
No fundraisers, no commercials (although it is OK to recommend choices of treatment or medical people based on your personal research; invitations to participate in third-party surveys are also acceptable, provided there is no compensation to YANA);
No harvesting e-mail addresses for Spam;
No insults or flaming - be polite and respectful at all times and understand that there may be a variety of points of view, all of which may have some validity;
Opinions are OK, but please provide as much factual evidence as possible for any assertions that you are making
Failure to abide by these simple rules will result in the immediate and permanent suspension of your posting privileges.
Since this is an International Forum, please specify your location in your post.
Bill, here is my amateur understanding of the issue.
The time will depend on the half life of the material used to generate the radiation.
When I first read about a half life of, say, six months, I assumed that the 'full life' would be 12 months i.e. that the material would not generate any radiation after 12 months. But that is not the case at all. The first half life of 6 months provides half the total radiation. The half left generates half of original dose over the next six months. That leaves a quarter of the original dose to be generated over the next six months - and so on!! The disruption of the cells will continue at least during the first two or three half life periods and maybe longer, depending on the initial dosage.
I don't know if this explanation has helped or confused. If the latter then you might try a search which will turn up items like this on Wikipedia HALF LIFE
Bill,
Photons are an external beam radiation technique. It is a bit like getting a sunburn from the sun when you are getting radiated except the destruction is taking place inside your body. Once the machine is turned off no more radiation. Just like a sunburn though, it takes a while for the destruction of the cells to take place. Cancer cells will quickly die when hit with the radiation and healthy cells can stay alive but they are also damaged by the radiation and that may cause them to die up to 5 years later.
Half life is related to brachiatherapy where the radiation source is implanted in your prostate and emits the rays at greater than half the initial intensity for six months if it has a half life of six months.
